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Onto today’s edition: we’ve got a chat with Blossoms frontman Tom Ogden to start your week. Tom’s a lovely fella, and as well as giving us the skinny on the group’s new album, Ribbon Around The Bomb, he also told us just how they came to form a Smiths tribute band with Rick Astley last year.
Enjoy the edition,
Ted, Niall and Chris
Start The Week With… Blossoms
The past two years has been a busy time for Blossoms frontman Tom Ogden. He wrote and recorded the band’s forthcoming new album, Ribbon Around The Bomb, which is out in April. He played the UK’s first ‘normal’ gig since the pandemic started. He got married and also managed to find the time to form a Smiths tribute band with Rick Astley. Chris hopped on a Zoom call with Tom a couple of weeks ago to hear just how he managed to fit it all in...
Hello Tom, how are you?
I’m alright thanks, I’m just at home.
What’s that massive picture behind you?
Oh, that’s Debbie Harry. It’s got neon lights in it so it lights up.
Very flash! How have Blossoms been keeping over the last few months?
Yeah alright. It feels kind of like it did at the back end of the summer, where it felt like a little bit more normality was coming back. It was touch and go around the wintertime for a lot of people with tours booked, but fingers crossed going forward I think we’ll be alright. It feels more optimistic.
Back in April you were the trial case for the first ‘normal’ gig. What did it feel like playing a gig as scientific experiment?
It was great just to be able to play again. At that point, it had been over a year since anyone had played a show so once we got asked we jumped at the opportunity just to get back on stage to do something. It was an honour, really. We’ll probably look back in years to come and be like, ‘Wow, we were the first normal thing people could do in that strange period of time that we all went through…’. We’ll probably never get to feel that emotion that we did on that day again. It was strange, but euphoric.
Was it a bit weird having a load of scientists standing in the back?
There were a lot of clipboards knocking about. They all seemed to be into it though, which was cool.
You’ve just announced your new album, Ribbon Around The Bomb – what’s the story behind the title?
I got the title when I was in Mexico. We played Corona Capital festival in November 2019 and I stayed for a couple of days afterwards and went to the Frida Kahlo museum. I think it was a writer from back in the day who had described one of her paintings as a ribbon around the bomb. I'm always taking ideas from things and I really liked that. I was reading a little plaque next to one of the paintings, I saw it written down and immediately thought it was a great title for a song. I went back home and wrote the song pretty much straight away.
I read something recently where you said ABBA were a big influence on this album?
Yeah 100%. ABBA have been an influence on the band from the start. We all love ABBA. As a songwriter it's just hooks everywhere. I think I was subconsciously thinking of ABBA when I wrote [2019 single] Care For. That's probably the most ABBA thing we've done, it was definitely inspired by things like You To Me Are Everything by The Real Thing, all those kind of wedding tunes. Sorry, my dog is scratching on the door…
Get him on the call! Speaking of wedding tunes, you got married last year too. Congratulations. How is married life treating you?
It’s sound. It’s not really that different. You feel like you’re a unit, a team, I suppose. I won't say it's a drastic change. It's just a nice thing to do. We've always wanted to do it. We like a party so it was the perfect excuse.
Did you have a wedding band?
Yeah, we had a Beatles tribute band. We had it here in the back garden.
What were they called?
They were called the Liverpool Beatles. They weren’t actually from Liverpool, but they were great. We had a Sinatra tribute after the speeches too. It was class.
Your wife is Joe [Donovan, Blossom’s drummer]’s sister. What’s it like being in a band with your brother-in-law?
Again, it’s no different. We’ve been best mates since we were 12. We do everything together anyway. Once me and Katie got together we just all started having Sunday dinner together each week with the family. It’s sweet. It’s literally no different.
On the subject of cover bands, the other thing you did last year was those shows with Rick Astley where you just covered Smiths songs. How on earth did that idea come together?
We have a podcast and we had a feature on the podcast called top five songs from Manchester where we get guests on to pick their top five songs from Manchester. We’d met Rick Astley at the Manchester Arena reopening in 2017, we spoke to him a bit and had a laugh so when we had the podcast we thought ‘let’s get Rick Astley on’ because he seems like a lovely bloke. We got him on and he was picking Smiths songs, saying they’re his favourite band. He started saying he wanted to do a one-off gig in Manchester where he just played Smiths songs. We were like, ‘That would be great! We’ll be your backing band!’ for a laugh. It became a thing and he said, “Well, let’s do it”. He came by our rehearsal room and it sounded great so we were like, "‘Fucking hell, let’s do it!’. We did one show in Manchester and one in London. We’re massive Smiths fans as well so we did it to celebrate the music. And Rick Astley is sound, so it was a laugh.
How did people react?
Oh it went down a storm! Everyone in the room loved it and we all had a really good time. We’ve probably got a lifelong friend in Rick now. He stayed round my house, we call the room The Rick Astley Suite. He came round for a bit of food and we played some drinking games. He came back round Christmas time too, we went for Sunday dinner.
Who would you pick to be a Blossoms tribute band?
I haven’t got a clue. It would have to be someone younger than us I suppose wouldn’t it? I’d get Inhaler in and put them in wigs. That’ll do.
Did you get feedback from any of The Smiths?
Morrissey put something on his fan page. I think he approved of it, it was put in a very Morrissey way where it was quite difficult to read. I think Johnny tweeted something that he wasn’t too impressed by it, but you win some, you lose some. We’re massive fans and it was a fun thing to do.
Thanks for chatting to us Tom.
No worries!
CC